The work of Taiwan playwright-director Stan Lai (Lai
Sheng-chuan) Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land (Anlian
Taohuayuan) has never been staged formally on the Chinese
mainland, yet it is a classic drama throughout China. More than 50
versions of the play have been put on by university students' drama
troupes. On a much larger scale, pirate DVDs of the play and film
have been watched by a large number of people.
Successful drama
Twenty years after its premiere in Taipei, Lai will co-operate
with the National Theatre Company of China to stage Secret Love
in Peach Blossom Land on the mainland. In Beijing, dates have
already been confirmed for November 18-26 at the Capital Theatre
and December 22 to January 7 at PLA Opera House, and in Shanghai
from December 8 to 13 at the Shanghai Grand Theatre.
"Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land is a very big play,"
Lai told China Daily. "Although I am the playwright and
director of the play, it is much bigger than myself."
It is a combination of two plays Secret Love, a tragedy
set in the modern times, and In Peach Blossom Land, a
comedy set in ancient times.
Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan are two lovers who meet in Shanghai
after the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45),
but are parted during the civil war. They lose touch for decades
until Jiang is dying in a hospital in Taipei.
The older story is about Laotao who leaves home outraged after
he finds his wife Chunhua having an affair with Yuan. By a strange
accident he ventures into the Peach Blossom Land, a utopia once
described by the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420) poet Tao
Yuanming. There he meets two lovers who look exactly like Chunhua
and Yuan.
Laotao cannot forget Chunhua and wants to reconcile and take her
to live in the Peach Blossom Land. When he goes home, he finds that
Chunhua and Yuan have become an unhappy couple just like Chunhua
and himself in the past. Laotao tries to escape back to Peach
Blossom Land, but can never find it again.
These two stories seem to be irrelevant, but when they are
combined in Lai's play, the result has become one of the most
successful dramas in Taiwan. The thread to sew them up in the play
is the mistaken scheduling of a theatre, which arranged two
different troupes to rehearse on the same day. Both troupes were
going to perform in two days, At last they compromised to rehearse
on the same stage in turn.
What the audience of "Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land" will
see is the juxtaposition of scenes from the two plays, as well as
some other stories hidden in the process.
Source of inspiration
The inspiration for Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land
came from years ago, when Lai was doing his PhD in drama at the
University of California, Berkeley. In the study of Greek plays,
Lai found that in ancient Greece, a complete theatrical performance
consisted of three tragedies and a satire of the three previous
tragedies.
Why is that? Lai believed that when the emotion is stirred to a
certain degree, a satire of this emotion can create better
purification. He also found example in the Japanese theatre. During
the intermission of the serious Noh Theatre, a light-hearted Kyogen
play is usually performed.
Lai's idea of creating a play that juxtaposes a comedy and
tragedy was embodied after he came back to Taiwan in 1983. One
afternoon Lai was watching the final rehearsal of another
director's play, which would premiere that night. However, from 4
pm to 6 pm, a graduation ceremony of a kindergarten was inserted by
the theatre without notice in advance. While actors were still
rehearsing, banners for the ceremony were hung up and a piano was
carried on to the stage, creating a sense of absurdity to Lai.
"Such disorder in the management of theatres was very common in
the 1980s Taiwan," said Lai. "No one knew, and no one cared what
the theatre workers did, but this incident became the direct
inspiration for Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land."
Lai founded his own group the Performance Workshop in 1984.
Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land was the group's second
work, which premiered in 1986. At that time, the Performance
Workshop was still a semi-professional group. Many actors had other
jobs, and the rehearsal hall was Lai's own parlour.
The play was so warmly received that all the scheduled 12
performances were sold out, and they had to add another 11. In the
past 20 years, Lai and the Performance Workshop went on to stage
three other versions of the play, in 1991, 1999 and 2006.
Each time Lai redirected the play, he tried to make some
renovations. In the latest version, the Ming Hwa Yuan Gezai Opera
(traditional Chinese opera popular in East China's Fujian and
Taiwan provinces) Troupe performed the part of Peach Blossom
Land, making the play a real colliding of two troupes.
More shows
Well-known Chinese actor Huang Lei and actress Yuan Quan will
headline the mainland version of Secret Love in Peach Blossom
Land, playing Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan in the Secret
Love part, while the In Peach Blossom Land part will
feature comic actors Yu Entai, Xie Na and He Jiong.
Lai has put on three of his plays on the mainland: Red
Sky, He and His Two Wives and Millennium
Teahouse, and is looking forward to exploring bigger market on
the mainland.
Lai is looking forward to a total of 100 performances of the new
version of Secret Love In Peach Blossom Land. English
sub-titles will be provided for foreign audiences in China.
Tours to Hong Kong in 2007, and to Taiwan and the United States
in 2008 are also planned.
Talking about the difficulty for many theatre workers in the
mainland to attract theatre-goers, Lai is confident that Secret
Love in Peach Blossom Land will be welcomed. "A good play has
the power to create audiences," said Lai.
(China Daily October 19, 2006)
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